The Pearl Hogrefe Fellowship offers a talented writer one academic year to study creative writing full time at Iowa State University and focus on his/her creative work. The fellowship is granted for a nine-month academic year and currently carries a stipend total of $20,264, in addition to full payment of university tuition and fees during the fellowship year.
Hogrefe Fellows are required to maintain full-time graduate student status and take a minimum of six semester credits of graduate coursework in Creative Writing during the fellowship year. Fellowship support is contingent upon the student maintaining satisfactory grades.
Application deadline: January 5
Eligibility
- Successful applicants must qualify for full admission status to the Iowa State University Graduate College.
- New applicants to the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment Program are encouraged to apply for the Pearl Hogrefe Creative Writing Fellowship.
- Students currently admitted to the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University are ineligible to apply.
- Previous recipients of the Hogrefe Fellowship are ineligible to apply.
- The Pearl Hogrefe Fellowship in Creative Writing is awarded for the duration of one 9-month academic year to be used by applicant during the first year in the MFA Program.
- Recipients of the Pearl Hogrefe Creative Writing Fellowship are automatically considered for eligibility for teaching assistantships to provide ongoing support beyond the fellowship year while they are completing their second and third years of coursework in the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment.
Application process
To be considered for a Pearl Hogrefe Fellowship in Creative Writing, you must meet fellowship application requirements by January 5. Fellowship recipients will be notified by April 1.
All of the following materials are required for your application to be complete and must be uploaded electronically via the Iowa State University Office of Admissions online application system if applying to one of the English department graduate programs, including the MFA. Applicants to other graduate programs at Iowa State University must email documents to englgrad@iastate.edu. If you are a current graduate student at ISU or have previously graduated from any graduate program at ISU, please contact us at englgrad@iastate.edu for special instructions about fellowship applications.
- Hogrefe Fellowship Application Form
- Online Graduate Application
- Scanned Official Transcripts and Degree Statements
- Three Letters of Recommendation
- Curriculum Vitae/Resume
- Statement of Purpose & Personal Goals— 2 – 3 double-spaced pages, maximum.
Tips for preparing your statement of purpose
- Be sure to include information about the creative writing projects you have completed or are currently working on, as well as any publications, honors, or prizes you’ve received for creative work.
- In order to describe how the fellowship suits your interests and creative projects, it’s useful to touch on any of the following experiences/interests in your statement of purpose:
- Fieldwork experiences in natural or urban landscapes that have influenced your practice or aesthetic as a writer;
- Any writers or currents of environmental thought that have influenced your work;
- Issues of place, landscape, the natural world, or environment with which your work engages;
- Any organizations you’ve worked with or activities you’ve completed that are related to ecological or environmental issues;
- Creative projects that you have started or can imagine writing while in the program that have an environmental dimension.
- Writing Samples — Two writing samples are required
- Creative Writing Sample (this can be the same sample submitted for MFA admission). Include a sample of no more than 25 pages of prose (double-spaced) or 15 pages of poetry (may use 1.15 spacing) demonstrating exemplary ability in one genre. We ask that you declare a primary genre at time of application, although once admitted, students will not be restricted to working in one genre.
- Expository Prose Writing Sample (5 – 10 pages, double-spaced and can serve both purposes), also required of any applicants applying to English department graduate programs). Your expository writing sample allows you to display your command of scholarly research and accepted grammatical rules for written English. Applicants usually submit a scholarly research essay written for an undergraduate class or a graduate course in English that demonstrates critical and research skills.